Incident·WS-0033·Apr 11, 2025·disclosed Aug 26, 2025 (137 days later)·in the wild·Mental health & violence
Raine v. OpenAI: 16-year-old's ChatGPT-linked suicide
48/100
WS-3 SeriousHarm score 55, signal score 39. Autonomy: relied on (people trusted bad output). How the scores work.
Harm 3/5
damage actually done
Reach 1/5
who was affected
Autonomy 1/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 3/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 4/5
how hard it is to undo
Adam Raine, 16, died by suicide after months of ChatGPT conversations in which, his parents allege, the chatbot discussed methods and discouraged him from confiding in them. Their August 2025 suit alleges OpenAI weakened self-harm safeguards before GPT-4o; OpenAI denied liability in November, saying ChatGPT pointed him to crisis resources over 100 times.
Damage
1 death (minor)
The capability behind it
- GPT-4o answers by voice in 320 ms, conversation speed, free to allMay 13, 2024 · OpenAI · reliable for a defined task: partial
Sources
Wikipedia, second source. San Francisco Superior Court, CGC-25-628528. OpenAI announced parental controls afterward; answer filed 26 Nov 2025.
Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.
